Suspension assembly for laundry machine

ABSTRACT

The present invention refers to a suspension assembly for laundry machines and, more specifically, to a suspension assembly for laundry machine comprising a washing liquid-containing tank suspended inside a structural housing. Said suspension assembly of the present invention comprises at least a suspension rod coupled to an upper portion of the inner wall of said housing and an lower portion of the outer wall of said tank; and at least a radial connection element with a first edge couplable to different positions of the outer wall of said tank and a second edge couplable to the suspension rod.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention refers to a suspension assembly for laundry machine and, more specifically, to a vertical shaft laundry machine.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Vertical shaft laundry machines with upper loading, washing tank is kept suspended inside a structural housing, and basket for receiving a load of clothes is washed and mounted inside the tank.

During a washing operation, a stirrer/impeller disposed inside the gasket is used to move the load of clothes being washed and the washing liquid inside the basket. During centrifugation—which is an operation in which the remaining water of the washing process is removed from the load of clothes—the basket is rotated at a rotation speed generally higher than that imposed to the basket or the stirrer/impeller during washing operations.

This basket rotation operation creates an intense vibration in the basket/tank assembly, which is transmitted to the structural housing causing same to displace on the floor, thereby generating an undesired phenomenon known as “walking” during washing and centrifugation operations at high rotation.

In order to avoid this inconvenience, a suspension is provided between the tank and structural housing. Such a suspension is generally formed of metal sticks and rods, whose upper edge is coupled to the structural housing upper portion and the lower edge with the lower portion of the tank. The connection portion between the rod and the tank is generally provided with a joint, and said connection between said rod and said housing is generally provided with an elastically deformable element. Said elastically deformable element should then be designed so as to dissipate vibratory energy coming from basket/tank assembly, whereby energy transmission to the structural housing is avoided.

Although said suspension formed of rods and sticks are widely used in laundry machines known from the art, it is recognized that same alone is not capable of deadening and totally dissipating vibratory energy generated by high rotation centrifuging operations.

A suspension assembly was then developed which, in addition to sticks, also uses a plurality of radial struts having an edge coupled to a tank median lateral region and the other edge coupled to a suspension stick or rod median region. This assembly, which is described in details in BR Patent Application PI 0705172-7, allows for part of the tank radial displacements to be transmitted to sticks, thus causing flexion deformations in the latter or in the struts themselves, whereby radial oscillations are attenuated.

Although the assembly proposed above has shown a vibration-deadening capacity substantially higher than that known from conventional machines, it has been noted that same has not the ability to behave in an optimized manner under all machine operational conditions.

In fact, once said machine can be used with different loads of clothes and said basket/tank assembly can be moved at different speeds, a suspension means having uniform suspension characteristic, although more effective than the conventional ones, is not capable of providing an optimal suspension, once there will always be certain load and rotation speed conditions under which the suspension uniform characteristic provided by the assembly is not the most appropriate.

OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION

In view of the foregoing, an object of the invention is to provide a suspension assembly for laundry machines capable of providing an effective suspension for the basket/tank assembly under machine operation conditions.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a suspension assembly for laundry machines having the ability to keep a satisfactory performance for a wide range of loads of clothes to be washed and rotation speeds of said basket/tank assembly.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The objects of the present invention are achieved by means of a laundry machine suspension assembly comprising a washing liquid-containing tank suspended inside a structural housing. Said suspension housing of the present invention comprises:

at least a suspension rod comprising a first edge articulately coupled to an upper portion of the housing inner wall and a second edge elastically coupled to a lower portion of the tank outer wall; and

at least a radial connection element having a first edge couplable to different positions in the tank outer wall and a second edge couplable to different positions in the suspension rod.

In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, coupling of the connection element with the tank outer wall and with the rod is carried out by movable fastening means.

Further in a preferred embodiment of the present invention, said suspension assembly additionally comprises means to adjust a radial extension of said radial connection element.

In said preferred embodiment of the present invention, the tank outer wall comprises fitting means to receive one of the movable fastening means of said element, wherein said fitting means comprises an endless spindle receiving a nut disposed at the edge of said radial connection element.

Further in said embodiment, the movable fitting means coupling said connection element with the rod is a sliding guide surrounding said rod.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Figures show:

FIG. 1 illustrates a simplified schematic cross-section view of a laundry machine, showing its structural housing, washing liquid-containing tank, and also a suspension assembly of the present invention.

FIG. 2 illustrates a perspective view of a suspension assembly of the state of the art.

FIG. 2—illustrates a detailed view of a preferred embodiment of a suspension assembly of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

Next, the present application will be described in more details based on working examples depicted in the drawings. Although the description below exemplifies a suspension assembly associated with a vertical shaft laundry machine with upper loading, a person skilled in the art will promptly understand that the present invention can be used in other types of machine such as horizontal shaft machines with front loading.

FIG. 1 illustrates a schematic cut view of a laundry machine comprising said suspension assembly of the present invention. Said machine comprises a structural housing 10, which construction is known from the state of the art. A washing liquid-containing tank 10 is disposed inside said housing. Said construction housing 10 and tank 50 are widely known from the state of the art, wherein, for exemplary and descriptive purposes, it is used herein that exemplary construction of BR Patent Application PI 0705172-7.

In this construction, illustrated in FIG. 2, a housing basically comprises a polygonal structure (not shown) consisting of metal sheets, wherein a support for receiving a suspension rod 30 is secured to the upper edge of the housing inner wall.

Said suspension rod 30 comprises an upper edge articulately coupled to the housing support and an inner edge coupled to the lower portion of tank 50. Said coupling between inner edge and tank 50 generally takes place by using an elastically deformable element (not shown), wherein the preferred deformable element is a spring.

Inside said tank 50, a basket for receiving a load of clothes to be washed and a stirrer for stirring said washing liquid and load of clothes are provided. Said basket and stirrer assembly as well as a motor for actuating said structures is well known from the art.

Suspension rods 30 are intended for absorbing at least part of vibratory energy generated by oscillation of tank 50. To this effect, they are designed as structures sufficiently thin in order to transversely and medially bend when said tank oscillates during washing and centrifugation operations.

Said suspension assembly illustrated in FIG. 2 and disclosed in BR Patent Application PI 0705172-7 further comprises radial struts 90. Each radial strut 90 comprises a first edge coupled to a median region of tank 50 and a second edge 92 coupled to a median region of suspension rod 30.

Said radial struts 90 may form wires, cables and strips of a rigid and extensible material or they can even be made of any other elastically deformable material. Said radial struts 90 enhance transmission of kinetics energy generated by vibration and radial displacement of said tank to said suspension rod 30 so that said energy is absorbed by the deformation of suspension rod 30. In a preferred embodiment in which they are made of elastically deformable material, said radial struts 90 absorb part of the kinetics energy generated by vibration and radial displacement of said tank 50.

Although said radial struts 90 show a performance improvement in relation to suspension means comprising only rods 30, their optimal performance depends on a specific machine operation condition.

Oscillation characteristics of the basket/tank assembly directly depend on distribution of the load of clothes in the basket and volume of said load. Therefore, oscillatory behavior substantially varies between washings. Moreover, said basked rotation speed substantially varies during operation of a washer so that suspension demands are not the same during all wash phases.

Therefore, the suspension assembly of the present invention proposes a solution that allows for an optimal performance of said suspension under all conditions of a laundry machine.

Such a constant optimal performance of said suspension assembly of the present invention is achieved by means of a connection element 40 which can be adjusted in accordance with operation conditions of a laundry machine.

Said connection element 40 comprises a structure similar to that of radial strut 90 but comprising movable fastening means in order to allow its position to be altered along the longitudinal direction of said suspension rod. This position change in element 40 can be continuously or selectively made by means of increments.

Therefore, the position of said connection element 40 can be changed in accordance with the conditions of a machine operation (load of clothes, basket rotation speed, etc.). For example, when needing a greater restriction of tank movement, said connection element can be disposed nearer the upper edge of rod 30. Nevertheless, the connection element height should be selected in order to ensure a sufficient high position to avoid shocks between the tank and the housing but not so high that would cause the washer to displace. This is due to the fact that if movement of the tank is subjected to a huge restriction, an excessive force is transmitted to the suspension rod, whereby this force is transmitted to the housing, thus causing an undesirable displacement thereof.

To obtain this ideal position, operational characteristics should be taken into consideration mainly concerning the amount of clothes in the basket.

In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the length of connection element 40 may also be adjustable so as to become more strained or loose depending on the machine operation requirements. Change in height of said element 40 can be continuously or selectively effected by increments.

Therefore, when a higher restriction in the tank movement is required, the length of element 40 can be set so as to render it more strained but keeping a clearance sufficient to avoid undesirable housing displacement.

Since this adjustment of the position and/or height of said connection element can be incrementally or continuously made, the assembly of the present invention allows for an optimal performance of the suspension under different operational conditions of a laundry machine.

FIG. 3 is an example of construction of a suspension assembly in accordance with the present invention. As can be seen in this Figure, element 40 comprises movable fastening means 41, 42 for securing said element 40 to tank 50 e to rod 3.

In the illustrated embodiment, said fastening means 41 is secured to a corresponding fitting means 52 disposed in tank wall 50. Said fitting means 52 comprises an endless spindle 52 driven by an electric motor 53, and said fastening means 52 takes the form of a nut 43.

Preferably, the wall of said tank 50 may comprise protrusions 54 a, 54 b receiving the edge of spindle 52, wherein said protrusions 54 a additionally serve as a support for said electric motor 53.

As to the fastening means 42 intended for securing element 40 to rod 30, it comprises a sliding guide 44 surrounding said rod 30.

Therefore, in accordance with the laundry machine operational conditions, said spindle 52 can be moved, thus varying the position of element 40 in longitudinal direction to said suspension rod 30.

It should be construed that the description supra based on the figures above only refers to possible embodiments of the suspension assembly of the present invention, the real scope of the object of the invention being defined in the appended claims. 

1. Suspension assembly for a laundry machine, comprising a washing liquid-containing tank suspended inside the structural housing, said suspension assembly comprising: at least a suspension rod having a first edge articulately coupled to an upper portion of housing inner wall and a second edge elastically coupled to lower portion of the outer wall of said tank; and at least a radial connection element having a first edge coupled to the outer wall of said tank and a second edge coupled to said suspension rod; characterized in that said first and second edges of the radial connection element can be coupled in different positions of the outer wall of said tank and suspension rod, respectively.
 2. Suspension assembly, in accordance with claim 1, characterized in that coupling of said connection element to the outer wall of said tank and to said rod is carried out by movable fastening means.
 3. Suspension assembly, in accordance with claim 2, characterized in that the outer wall of said tank comprises a fitting means to receive one of the movable fastening means of said element.
 4. Suspension assembly, in accordance with claim 3, characterized in that said fitting means comprises an endless spindle, and said movable fastening means comprises a nut fitted in said endless spindle.
 5. Suspension assembly, in accordance with any of claims 1 to 4, characterized in that said movable fitting means coupling the connection element to the rod is a sliding guide surrounding said rod.
 6. Suspension assembly, in accordance with any of claims 1 to 5, characterized in that it further comprises means for adjusting the radial extension of said radial connection element. 